Sunshine and Summer Sneezing
by niagaraweasel
Summary: Just a short, fluffy, silly little Olicity scene...


**Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow (otherwise we would have a lot more workout scenes and a lot more Olicity) and intend no copyright infringement.**

**A/N: my take on Felicity helping Oliver to keep up appearances. Collaboration with cedricsowner, so if you like the ending, you know who to thank for that ;-).**

"See, I told you sunbathing is dangerous", Oliver complained.

For someone with an unusually high tolerance for pain the tone in his voice suspiciously sounded like… a whine.

"And I told you - repeatedly - to use sunscreen. I even offered to share mine with you, although how you can have a pool in your backyard - literally - and not have any sunscreen in the house is beyond me. But did you listen to me? No, you decided to refuse it like a sulking five-year-old. Well, now you have to live with the consequences", Felicity countered, continuing to spread aloe gel over Oliver's back.

Oliver grumbled wordlessly. When Felicity had shown up in the lair a few days ago, waving a pair of ridiculous swimming trunks in front of his face and telling him he needed to work on his tan "to keep up appearances" he had been dead set against it.

For one, because he detested swimming and secondly, even if he didn't have to actually swim, with all that was going on in his life, he couldn't just take time off to simply lie around doing nothing more than catching some sun, appearances be damned.

And there was another reason as well, although one he would never admit to anyone…

He had absolutely no problem working out shirtless at the lair, but what if his mother or Thea were to suddenly show up? He definitely didn't want them to see exactly how much damage those five years on the island had done to his body. That would only cause them to worry, and worry usually led to all kinds of questions he had absolutely zero intent of ever answering. Not to mention that his mother – worst case scenario – might recognize the gunshot wound she had once given the Arrow.

But in the end Felicity had won the argument - again. She had managed to arrange for a whole afternoon without any meetings, pressing paperwork or other distractions, and as if she had somehow been able to read his mind, she had even managed to set everything up on a day were both his mother and Thea were definitely going to be out of the house for the whole day.

And he had to admit, once he had resigned himself to his fate he had found himself actually enjoying it. For just a few hours he had managed to relax, enjoy the warm sunshine on his skin and forget about each and every problem that he usually had to worry about. Granted, it had been sort of a guilty pleasure, but it had felt so good to not have to be Oliver Queen, CEO, or Ollie, the son and brother, or even the Arrow, but to just be.

And of course, getting to see Felicity in a candy-pink bikini had been an unexpected bonus. Talk about icing on the cake.

That image might just make resisting temptation and keeping his distance from her a lot more difficult in the long run, but it had definitely been worth getting sunburned for. Especially since by now the cooling effect of Felicity's aloe gel had damped down the burning of his skin to a point where he could enjoy the decidedly pleasant feeling of Felicity's hands on his back. With a small, contented sigh he closed his eyes and relaxed under her touch.

"ACHOO!"

The warmth of Felicity's touch disappeared. She had to blow her nose.

"What…?

"Nothing. I just got a bit wet when I collected that aloe gel for you. It's hard to notice down here, but it's raining heavily outside… summer rain…. the water is warm, the temperatures are mild, I didn't think it would give me a cold. Oh well, don't worry, I'll go home now, curl up on the sofa and have some soup." Felicity put the aloe gel aside, hugged herself and started rubbing her arms.

"ACHOO!"

"Felicity…" With a groan Oliver sat up. "Just like aloe works best against sunburn, there's one particular thing that works best against summer rain sneezing."

"And that would be?" Felicity sneezed again.

He took her into his arms and held her tight.


End file.
